Category Archives: Health

Intention To Treat and checking for implementation failure and differential effects – questions about vitamin A trials in Ghana

Has a large RCT provided definitive proof that vitamin A supplementation is ineffective in reducing maternal mortality? Or could there be another explanation? And why hasn’t the widespread reporting of these findings examined these?

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Posted in Causal inference, Causal inference strategies, Health | Tagged , , , | 6 Comments

Facebook ‘spreads syphilis’ – or does it?

Another example of how misreporting of findings can undermine effective public response to identified hazards.

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Posted in Appropriate inference, Appropriate reporting, Causal inference, Health | Tagged , | Leave a comment

The Friday Funny: A review of RCTs on parachute use

We recently stumbled across this all-time classic that Genuine Evaluation readers may well appreciate!

Smith, G. C. S. & Pell, J. P. (2003, December). Parachute use to prevent death and major trauma related to gravitational challenge: systematic review of randomised controlled trials. BMJ, 327, 1459-1461. Continue reading

Posted in Causal inference, Friday Funnies, Health | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Long-term effects; what to do with them and without them

Greetings, genuwiners! Thought I’d toss a small puzzle into the stream of discussions to start my visit. Ideally, almost all program evaluations need to include a long term follow up, but almost none of the clients can wait for long-term … Continue reading

Posted in Adequate scope, Appropriate inference, Health | Tagged , , , , , | 6 Comments

500 cockroaches on a bus – or are there?

A recent expose of dodgy statistics in the UK about pests on public transport shows just how hard it can be to, firstly, get to the truth about unreliable or fabricated statistics that are uncritically reported, and, secondly, how hard it can be to get corrections made. Continue reading

Posted in Adequate scope, Appropriate criteria and standards, Appropriate reporting, Government programs, Health | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment